Graduate School Courses

EDU 501 introduces students to the main themes of the MA program, beginning with a critical inquiry into the dialectical relations of school and society. Through intensive readings and discussion, small-group projects, and reflection papers, the course examines the social forces of change and persistence, the structural constraints, and the opportunities (for innovation and creativity, for example). Students analyze the political and socioeconomic context in which schools, teachers, and administrators operate. They also study the generative results of school reform nationally and cross-nationally.

EDU 502 approaches educational leadership as the facilitation of a complex web of interconnections in which various actors, student and non-student alike, form together with the surrounding society. Students study and analyze aspects of educational leadership through both theories and practices to inform and reflect on a variety of issues and cultures, each with their own unique norms and assumptions, historical evolution, and guiding myths. The course utilizes firsthand accounts of organizational leadership experiences and case studies in an effort to understand education and its connection to broader society from multiple perspectives. Taking place over the Winter Block, this course examines both leadership theory and research methods that are descriptive, field-based, interpretive, and discovery-focused. A two-day long “shadowing” experience with local educational leaders, both school-based and non-school-based, provides real-world practice for experiential learning and investigation.

EDU 503 examines the social, historical, and philosophical foundations of contemporary schooling. The course explores the metaphysical, epistemological, moral, and political problems that educational philosophers have grappled with for centuries in their efforts to answer two questions: (1) What knowledge is most worth having? (2) What is the best way to educate students? Beginning with the classical texts of Socrates and Confucius and concluding with such modern theorists of education as John Dewey, Paulo Freire, Jean Piaget, and the Japanese educator, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, the course traces the changing relations of theory and practice, philosophy and rhetoric, speculative thought and applied knowledge in the historical evolution of education worldwide. Systems of thought variously described as positivistic, naturalistic, holistic, historicist, humanist, constructivist, empirical, relativistic, and pragmatic have provided the basis for extensive argument and discussion in the social sciences, humanities, and more recently, education. The course makes a thorough study of these and other ideas in the early development and contemporary expression of the history and philosophy of education.

EDU 504 introduces students to the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological questions and concerns that have animated scholarship and practice in the field of comparative and international education from the early twentieth century beginnings. Students will consider comparisons and borrowing and lending of educational ideas and best practices through historical and contemporary issues from across the world. Seminal questions to be examined: How do ‘global’ forces impact educational development in different settings? What are the transnational concerns surrounding culture and schooling? Who are the key actors and institutions that educate in different systems around the world? Course topics may include the internationalization of higher education, large-scale testing regimes, global mobility, sustainability, and dominant ideologies or cultures that have impacted educational development and outcomes around the world, including reform motivations, meanings, and structures. These seminal questions provide the opportunity to pursue fundamental questions of purpose, theory, method, and various empirical logic in international and cross-national inquiry in educational policy studies.

EDU 505 explores the theory and research of leadership across a variety of cultures, genres, perspectives, and individual cases, where the kind and degree of leadership is essential for achieving educational objectives. As aspiring educational leaders, students consider the most challenging and controversial issues within school systems, familiarize themselves with data-driven best practices in school leadership, and become intelligent consumers of research as it impacts the theory and practice of leadership generally. This course will lay the foundation for future research, giving students hands-on and theoretical experiences to design, manage, and conduct their own projects. Students will build upon their literature review search skills through added understanding of databases, peer review process, predatory publishing, and other bibliometric tools. The class will also cover various research methodologies and approaches, such as participant sampling, case selection, interviewing, observations, field notes, ethics, and coding. Through the course’s technical, theoretical, and practical explorations, academic studies on education and leadership will be demystified and deconstructed in order to foster confidence in student research skills.

EDU 506 examines the theoretical, philosophical, methodological, and conceptual questions and concerns that inform (non)democratic approaches to societal, organizational, and institutional change. Human beings live in a complex world. One that is constantly evolving and exists in multiple dimensions and planes. Understanding the nature, scope, pace, agents, and process through which such changes occur is essential for preserving human flourishing, agency, and security. Edu 506 equips learners with the foundational knowledge to understand, manage, initiate, and shepherd transformational change initiatives. It empowers them to achieve lasting and effective societal change by harnessing education’s power. Students enrolled in this course will encounter the works of writers and public thought-leaders like Saul Alinsky, John Dewey, Paulo Freire, Mikhail Gorbachev, Friedrich Hayek, Daisaku Ikeda, Karl Marx, and Kwame Nkrumah.

EDU 507 introduces a critical and pragmatic examination of leadership through key legal and policy contexts that govern daily and long-range ethical decision-making by educational leaders. The course examines the law and policies that govern educational organizations in relation to the cultural, social, economic, and political standards embodied in state and federal codes, case law, and the policies that educational leaders encounter in their day-to-day work.

Addressing the following seminal questions, the course takes a two-pronged approach of law and the policies it produces framed by the ethical educational leader: Who has a right to influence schools and education? How do policies and laws impact educational institutions? How should we think about school success and opportunity in a global society? What is the pragmatic stance for the ethical school leader with educational policy? Through these questions, the class will see how law and policy development has been undergirded by the relationship between a leader’s values and decision-making.

EDU 508 is a first-year graduate-level survey of quantitative and mixed (qualitative and quantitative) research methods commonly found in educational studies. The general content base of this course is twofold: 1) research planning and design and 2) data analysis and reporting. Through reading published empirical research, as well as class activities and discussion, students will recognize the theoretical, practical, and sociocultural constraints on all parts of educational research, from questions and design to analysis and interpretation. Students gain an understanding of common and differentiating features of typical research designs; ethical, legal, practical, and cross-cultural considerations in research studies in education; planning and integration techniques for mixed methods analysis; descriptive statistics and basic inferential statistics, including measures of central tendency, dispersion, correlations, and group comparisons; the role of validity, reliability, and fairness in design and measurement; and quality indicators in published research.

Students work on their MA Thesis under the supervision of a faculty advisor, building on the knowledge base acquired in EDU 502 and 508 to equip students with the research skills they will need to complete their MA Thesis. Work includes considering the relevancy of published research to their own work and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of various analytical methods. Students will have opportunities to share their research progress and receive feedback from their peers and faculty.

Edu 513 is a practice-oriented course for educational leaders for societal change. It introduces learners to program development principles and procedures, current trends and issues, and essential planning skills like needs assessment, context analysis, stakeholder(s) engagement, budget planning, program management, and program evaluation. Students will learn about contemporary program management techniques, analytical models, and software. They will also learn about the reinforcing relationship between program design, objectives, implementation and management, assessment, and organizational policy. Students will study these issues from the perspective of a program manager, who must make decisions and manage program resources to achieve results in an imperfect world. Upon completing the course, learners will be able to design actionable programs based on policy directives, draft comprehensive program documents, assess program quality and effectiveness, and manage, monitor, and evaluate program implementation. They will develop greater awareness of the many unplanned problems that may arise in the development, implementation, and evaluation process. They will also develop a toolkit of materials and philosophical perspectives that will assist them in effectively dealing with the challenges.

EDU 515 explores the psychology of learning with a focus on how theoretical and empirical knowledge about human cognition, emotion, and attitudes can be applied in schools and other educational settings. As an interdisciplinary blend of psychology and education, it necessarily addresses both theoretical and practical issues. As a branch of psychology, it investigates the science of human behavior, especially the behaviors connected to motivation and learning. As education, it emphasizes practice and applied knowledge that inspires positive individual development and social change. Students gain an understanding of key concepts in the areas of human development, learning theory, and motivation; explore applications of concepts in contemporary educational settings through case studies and other activities; and consider contemporary issues in the field from various individual perspectives and cultural contexts.

EDU 517 offers a review of types, purposes, procedures, uses, and limitations of assessment strategies. Students are introduced to emerging trends in assessment, various assessment techniques and models, and how the assessment process is used to evaluate individuals, curricula, and programs. Students consider how to determine appropriate assessment tools for different educational contexts, and how to recognize the implications of these assessment decisions for social justice and social change. Students gain not only the assessment competencies they will need as educational leaders but the communicative skills to convey the results of assessments to their communities, helping build support for schools and for initiatives that educators wish to carry out.

Students continue to work on their MA thesis under the supervision of a faculty advisor. By the end of the course, students will have written the introduction, literature review, and methods chapters of the thesis.

Students spend the last semester of the Program preparing and completing their MA Thesis under the supervision of a faculty advisor. Students will present a monthly progress report at a thesis colloquium and receive feedback from peers and faculty. After completing the thesis, they will present their work at a graduate school-organized public event.

The Summer Research Program, which occurs between the first and second years, is a non-credit-bearing instructional option designed to enable graduate students to conduct MA thesis research. This may include work at one or more discrete locations in the United States or abroad. Students may identify a field site(s) where they can obtain first-hand experience and pursue research in an area of scholarly interest.